In the News

August 15, 2017 By Janet Levaux, ThinkAdvisor LPL Financial said Tuesday that it bought National Planning Holdings’ four broker-dealers — National Planning Corp., Invest Financial, Investment Centers of America and SII Investments — for $325 million. The independent broker-dealer aims to pick up about 3,200 advisors with $120 billion of client assets—putting the combined group at 17,500 and $660 billion in assets. LPL says it will pay up to $123 million more in the first half of 2018 if 72% of NPH advisors’ production (fees & commissions revenue) joins the company. It’s worth noting, that LPL reserves the right to “not transfer a small subset of representatives who do not meet certain affiliation criteria,” according to a memo sent to NPH advisors and obtained by ThinkAdvisor. Plus, LPL says […]

August 8, 2017 By Janet Levaux, ThinkAdvisor CEO Poer says seller Securian is not exiting the broker-dealer business, will keep ownership of another BD Independent advisor platform Kestra Financial says it is buying H. Beck, from Securian Financial Group. The groups work, respectively, with about 1,700 and 600 advisors. “The announced transaction puts us over the 2,000 mark in the aggregate,” said Kestra CEO James Poer in an interview. In terms of assets under management at its RIAs, Kestra has $21 billion, while H. Beck has about $2.5 billion. (These figures do not include assets under administration.) “We approached Securian about the organization, and they liked our ideas …,” Poer explained. “We explained that we could provide a great home to and a bright future for H. Beck.” The group, […]

August 9, 2017 By Bruce Kelly, Investment News With speculation swirling about an imminent sale of the four National Planning Holdings Inc. broker-dealers, the network’s CEO, Scott E. Romine, last week took the extraordinary step to send an email to the 3,500 reps and advisers affiliated with the broker-dealers to say he would not comment about such rumors. On July 30, Financial Advisor magazine on its website published an article titled “LPL Seen As Front-Runner To Buy National Planning Holdings’ B-D Network” and cited “sources in the insurance industry” for attribution. NPH is owned by insurer Jackson National Life Insurance Co. The next day, Mr. Romine gave his no comment about a sale to LPL Financial. “I wanted to take a moment to address that and say firmly as a […]